ABSTRACT
For the time being, oriental influence was. virtually confined to technique and imagery. Here the Cretan metalwork is exceptional, in that it maintains an oriental style for a long time, without much concession to local taste; yet it had no effect on the rest of the Greek world. Everywhere else, oriental notions were quickly hellenized, in accordance with the local Geometric tradition. Thus the later Attic diadems are Geometric in style, and sometimes also in theme (fig. 38d); the first post-Mycenaean seal-engravers often adopt oriental shapes, but the engraving is crudely Geometric (fig. 50); Syrian figurines, with their tilted heads and deep-set eyes, had only a passing influence on Geometric bronzes (figs. 41a, 58c,d); the ivory girl from Athens (fig. 42b-d) shows how a fleshy Syrian prototype could be translated into a graceful Geometric idiom. Vasepainting, the art in which the Geometric tradition was most firmly rooted, was especially resistant to the freer style of oriental prototypes: thus the varied animal processions on the earlier Attic diadems were rigidly standardized and geometricized by the Dipylon Master (fig. 33c); and much the same can be said of the Euboean Cesnola Painter’s Tree of Life (fig. 61c), and of the Attic adaptations of a North Syrian cult scene (pp. 1223 nn. 37-8) to suit local funerary ritual.
